Senate approves $345 billion defense spending bill

WASHINGTON -- The Senate approved its $345 billion defense spending bill without a dissenting vote Tuesday after dispensing with Republican objections that had stymied progress for a week as the nation geared up for war.

The vote was 99-0 for the bill that authorizes money for the Defense Department and the military work of the Energy Department for fiscal 2002, which began Monday.

"The men and women in the military should be able to count on us in normal times, and surely they ought to be able to count on us in these emergency times. And I believe very firmly that this bill does exactly that," Sen. Carl Levin, chairman of the Armed Services Committee, told the Senate.

The $345 billion represents an 11 percent increase, or $34.2 billion, over last year's spending. It includes $8.3 billion for President Bush's prized missile defense program, up $3 billion, although he could spend $1.3 billion of that to fight terrorism.

To deal with terror, Bush requested $5.6 billion, an increase of $1 billion over last year, and the Senate upped the total by $217 million, not including the missile defense money.

The measure also would raise military salaries, increase housing allowances and provide money to streamline the military to meet new threats.

The only senator who did not vote was 98-year-old Sen. Strom Thurmond, R-S.C., who fainted earlier Tuesday as he sat at his desk on the Senate floor. He was taken to Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington.

Just hours before the Senate endorsed the bill, it voted by a surprising 100-0 to quash delays caused by GOP efforts to attach to the defense measure both the Bush administration's energy package and a separate prison industry provision.

The Senate's $345 billion measure is $1.3 billion over Bush's request, but the House-Senate conference is expected to limit it to $343 billion.